Chapter Text
Chapter 5: If We’re Doing This, We’re Doing It My Way, Got That You Stupid Bug?
Soooo...
The good news?
Ivan made an honest effort to get Mylene to be his girlfriend, and yes, it turns out he was, in fact, a singer.
The bad news?
Ivan may be a singer, but it turns out his preferred genre is metal, and Mylene, lovely girl that she is, is in fact a timid child (who may or may not need protecting on general principles).
So, Ivan decided that if he was to sing to her, then he would sing in his most skilled fashion.
That is, metal screaming.
The worst news?
Somewhat predictably, Ivan got rejected in the form of Mylene running terrified from his screaming singing. If that wasn’t enough, his classmates, the stellar and upstanding individuals that they are, decided this was an ideal time to mock him.
Mock. Ivan.
The guy who some 24 hours ago was a giant, unstoppable rock monster comprised of rage and a need for a revenge on, you guessed it, bullying classmates.
The fact that this was probably the most guaranteed action to recreate said giant rock monster probably never occurred to them, what with the chances of them stopping to think about their actions being basically zero.
And, in the truest fashion of such things, Action A caused Reaction B, in turn causing result C, Giant Rock-Ivan (she refused to call him Stone-heart) rampaging through the city, this time with one Chloe Bourgeois in hand, screaming her whiny lungs off.
Under normal circumstances, Marinette would sit back and enjoy the show, but somewhat in keeping with her strain of luck and lack thereof, these weren't exactly normal circumstances, or whatever passed for them these days, she mused as she ran at her standard ground eating trot, only slightly faster than the traffic she past.
For one, those extra rock monsters (golems, she thought idly) made by the bonus butterflies? Yeah, those were all active now.
Now, Rock-Ivan moved with a purpose, and probably had some sort of bond or form of control with the other minor golems, but in the meantime, the golems did one thing: Break stuff.
And Marinette had to hand it to them, they were good at it.
This was almost certainly aided by being some 3 meter tall, semi-sentient creatures of pure-destruction, but credit where credit is due she guessed. Unfortunately, the most prominent things they were destroying was buildings, and judging from their current paths of destruction, it was only a matter of time before they arrived at the Patisserie that was the blunette’s home. She had started running as soon as she had realised this, and, internal monologue and all, arrived at her home in record time, giving only the briefest of greetings to her parents before saying, “Maman, Papa, I need to go get something, then we gotta talk.”
This earned her a pair of Looks(TM)from her parents, but they nodded, flipping the shop sign to closed and moving to the lounge to wait while Marinette rushed upstairs.
The blunette in turn, only felt a sense of dread build as she made her way into her loft bedroom. It had only been a matter of time really, but whatever the case, this had been the first time where her Condition had resulted in such wanton destruction, let alone actually endangered her home.
The dread soon turned to disgust, with a nice slice of self-loathing thrown in. There was really no question in her mind: all of this came from her Condition.
And, like many things associated with her Condition, magic was at once the cause of, and solution to, all of her problems.
Marinette couldn’t help but sigh even as she unlocked her safe, one counter-measure at a time.
Gods how she hated magic.
(She knew for a fact that there was more than one God, but she figured they could all take the blame for this.)
As the final protection was peeled back and the safe opened before her, Marinette found herself stalling, falling into autopilot even as she pulled out the log book and opened it to the most recent entry. There it was, a small black box, with red, Chinese style detailing, entered in yesterday’s date.
And right beside it, the column she had proudly kept empty all this time.
The withdrawal log.
After writing the day’s date, the pen near piercing the paper with the force applied, the blunette donned a pair of thick leather gloves she had stored here for this purpose before taking a deep breath and puling the small box from the safe. After knocking the door closed with her shoulder, the defenses falling into place automatically, she made her way downstairs holding the box at arms length in front of her, scowling in distaste all the while.
After one more deep breath, Mari entered the lounge where her parents were waiting. Their expressions were telling: Concern and worry for their daughter, and scowling disgust for the box she was carrying. They may not know the details of what she held, but her manner of transport told them all they needed to know.
After sitting down Sabine asked, “What’s going on ma chérie?”
The question was simple, yet held many layers. Fully unpacked, it may translate to something closer to:
“What’s going on? You have a box, a magic box by the way you held it. You hate magic, we hate magic, why the box? Oh Gods it has something to do with the Giant Rock-Ivan doesn’t it? Please, please tell us that it doesn’t and you’re pregnant or something instead. We don’t care that you’re thirteen, anything is better than THAT box, holding the answer to the Giant Rock-Ivan (plus golems) and you having to actively engage with magic to solve the problem. Shit, wait, you would love nothing more than to let everyone else deal with the problem. You would only brought out the clearly hated magic box because it’s about to become OUR problem isn’t it?”
Translating all of this with the ease of years of practice at their peculiar brand of shorthand, Mari let out a resigned sigh before answering simply, “Yes.”
The effect was immediate, both of her parent’s shoulders slumping with resignation before turning in tandem to glare at the box in question, her mother saying bitterly, “Well might as well get on with it.”
Sabine shook her head with another sigh. “So what’s the story behind this one?”
Marinette set the box down in the middle of the coffee table before replying.
“Standard home invasion. Found this on my desk yesterday afternoon shortly after Rock-Ivan showed up and followed standard protocol.”
This got a scowl of disgust at the box by way of reply before a short nod. It had been an unfortunate Christmas eve when the blunette was only 3 years old the first time Marinette’s condition tracked her into the house, a fairy trying to lure Mari on an adventure. Almost managed it too, before Tom caught the thrice-damned thing with the fly swat.
After a long look by the family staring at the box, Tom looked up at his daughter and asked the question that was on both parents’ minds.
“Why now?”
Marinette let out a heavy sigh. “So, my classmate gets turned into a giant rock monster by a magic butterfly. At the same time this thing shows up on my desk. You know, just in time to save the day,”
She said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Normally I’d ignore it, but it seems like the butterfly multiplied, making lots of extra golems, probably linked to the original. As Rock-Ivan is back, the golems are active, and breaking stuff.”
“And there are some headed this way,” Sabine guessed grimly, getting a nod in reply.
After a moment longer, Mari, shakes her head and says, “Let’s get this over with I guess,”
before reaching out and opening the box.
She has time to see a pair of surprisingly cute spotted ladybug earrings before a bright red light shines from them, hovering in the air for a second before forming into a....bug? Mouse? Fairy thing?
“Hello Marinette! My name is Tikki and-”
“And stop. Just stop.” Marinette cuts in, leaving the fairy thing stunned. That wasn’t the reaction she had been looking for. There were also two people who looked to be Marinette’s parent standing there, equally glaring at her. Tikki felt like something had gone wrong along here somewhere.
“Right, so here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to put aside the fact that you know my name, which means someone’s been spying on me, and the home-invasion required to put your box in my room aside for the moment -make no mistake, we WILL be coming back to it- and you’re going to answer some questions for us. If we don’t like the answer, you’re going strait back into the box.
Got it?”
The stunned bug-mouse-fairy thing nodded dumbly. Oh yes, something was very much not going according to plan here.
“Right,” the blunnette said firmly before sitting down, gesturing for the home-invader to do the same, before pulling out a note-book and pen.
“Tikki was it?” she asked crisply, the teenager said, beginning the interrogation.
~~~
It wasn’t long into said interrogation when all the humans present felt a raging headache forming from any number of causes.
It could be the existence of Kwami, miniature gods from the dawn of creation, apparently bound to pieces of jewellery and at the command of the said jewellery’s owner.
It could be the fact that the Guardian (yes, the same old man who she had saved. She KNEW that would come back to bite her. And he was supposed to be secret too. Apparently.) had screwed up badly enough to destroy his entire Order.
Or that he decided giving power of Deities of Creation and Destruction to two teenagers, with no warning or training, was a brilliant idea.
Or that his justification for this was that they where more adaptable. Or something. Not very clear on that to be honest. Something about how that was how Guardians were always trained?
Putting aside the very present creepy grooming vibes there, surely adults more set on the side of being good people was a better idea. Not to mention that apparently the one behind Rock-Ivan was an adult, and that being an adult gave significant advantages to using the Miraculous, the jewellery the mini-gods were bound to.
Yeah, putting aside all of those things (and she could feel herself shaking with fury that she had to ignore them), she had gotten the information they needed.
“So, I have to use you and these earrings to purify the Akuma, the magic butterfly, which I have to access by breaking the infected object. Then I can reverse this by using a power called Miraculous Ladybug. While using your powers, I can use a power called Lucky Charm to recieve an object which I can use to insure my victory if I can figure out how to use it. After using Lucky Charm I have 5 minutes before I change back automatically, as I’m not an adult. Is that all correct?”
Tikki, who had been nibbling on a cookie at the time, nodded at her.
“Right, how do I access your powers?”
The Kwami smiled. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Simple, you just put on the Miraculous and say the transformation phrase. For the Ladybug, you say ‘Tikki, Spots on’ and ‘Spots off’ to change back.”
Marinette nodded at this. Tikki started getting excited, surely not long now? It felt like forever since she had been bound to a Ladybug to run.
“What’s the catch?”
Huh?
“You heard me. What’s. The. Catch?” The blunette snarled at the tiny god.
“Do I automatically sign over my soul to you? Do you become bound to my body or soul? Do I die if I stop using you? Are there side-effects for using you for too long? What’s the catch?!”
Marrinette screamed at the trembling Tikki, her chest heaving with her fury.
“...um? None?” she managed to squeak out.
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” She screamed blue eyes blazing, before her Mama put a hand on her shoulder, some of the rage immediately flowing out of her.
Tikki looked at the mother gratefully before she spoke again.
“There’s no catch, not really. But there are side-effects, sort of? As you use one miraculous more over time, if you are suited to it, you unlock more of it’s potential power. You also start taking on some of the traits of the animal it’s based on. In my case, you’ll get really tired and sleepy in the winter and you’ll start really liking plants. You may also start wanting to eat flowers? And aphids? That has happened once or twice in the past. You’ll also become stronger and faster when not actively using the miraculous over time, but that takes a while.”
All three humans were looking at her intently, before Marinette asked one final question:
“And you would be willing to stake your existence on all you have said being true?”
Tikki felt herself freezing under the blunette’s terrifyingly clinical gaze.
“Because should we find out that you have lied to us, I will do everything in my power to destroy you. And if that doesn’t kill me, I will hunt down and destroy your Guardian and the other Miraculous. Oh, no doubt you will be hard to kill. But I have a lot of powerful magical objects available to me, and some of them are truly incredibly destructive. I’m sure I can find something that will hurt you. So. Would you stake your life, and that of all your other little Kwami friends, that you haven’t lied to us.”
Meeting Marinette’s gaze was hard enough, but it was positively benign compared to that of her parents, and Tikki could feel, with all of her millions of years of experience that not only did they mean this threat, but there was every chance they could carry it out as well.
So, with no little trepidation, Tikki nodded and said with a dry mouth, “Yes,” and prayed she did not just damn the world for it.
Mari nodded, with a small smile by way of reply. “Right stay here for a minute ok? We’ll be right back,” she said, before the three humans headed into the hallway to have a conversation that for what little of it she caught, deeply confused the Kwami.
“- can’t one of us do it?”
“- keep happening-....... - choose the genre - ......... choose the adventure.”
“-....no side-effects! Best offer I’ve ever had!”
“.....to another world. Not even......”
“..... lieing?”
A moment of silence.
“Burn it. Burn the world if we have to.”
The voice of the cute blue haired girl froze Tikki’s godly essence.
The three humans returned to the room and the frozen Kwami, the parents looking tired and resigned, and Marinette looking confident and a little excited but trying to hide it.
The teenager clapped her hands together. “Right! Let’s do this shall we?” she said with a bright grin.
Strangely, this cheerful smile did nothing to reassure Tikki.